[This article was originally published on September 28, 2015. DSI updates and republishes this article annually to draw attention to the plight of refugees worldwide.] Oh, a storm is threat’ning, My very life today, If I don’t get some shelter, Oh yeah, I’m gonna fade away War, children, it’s just a shot away, It’s just a shot away, War, children, it’s just a shot away, It’s just a shot away 1969, Rolling Stones, ‘Gimme Shelter’, Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, ‘Let it Bleed’ album This is now. Over 30,000 Palestinians gathered along Gaza’s border with Israel on Friday, March 30th, to vent their pent-up frustration in a protest that quickly turned violent. Israeli forces reportedly killing 15 at the border fence. In the course of Israel’s creation in 1948 and its occupation of the West Bank and Gaza in 1967, more than half the Arabs living in pre-1948 Palestine are thought to have been forcibly displaced. Today, some 5 million Palestine refugees are registered with the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA). Palestinians represent one of the oldest refugee populations on earth. South Sudan has suffered years of civil war in the process of becoming a nation in 2011, leaving it one of the poorest countries in the world. South Sudan cannot provide its people the basics of adequate healthcare, education, and income opportunities. Children are paying the price with their lives. More than 5.7 million South Sudanese cannot feed themselves, and food insecurity continues to rise, poised to reach six million in 2018. Nearly four million people are displaced because of conflict and hunger, including two million who have fled to neighboring countries since December 2013. Uganda hosts more than one million refugees from South Sudan; 60 percent of the displaced are...

By Richard L. Wottrich, CEO and Senior Consultant, International Services, July 29, 2017, Atlanta USA Code Talkers When the U.S. entered World War I, encryption of Allied communications was a major problem, as their codes were generally based on either European languages or mathematical progressions. The Germans routinely broke their codes. Sending out runners proved ineffective, since about one in four runners were captured or killed. Other methods, such as carrier pigeons, or signal rockets, were slow and unreliable. During the war, over ten thousand Native Americans enlisted in the U.S. armed forces to fight the Central Powers, even though America had not yet granted them citizenship. Near the end of the war, on October 26, 1918, members of the Choctaw tribe were put to use for the first time using their native language as a code. They played a major role in an attack on a strongly fortified German position, Forest Ferme. “The enemy’s complete surprise is evidence that he could not decipher the messages,” Colonel A.W. Bloor later wrote in an official report. These so-called “code talkers” were utilized to even greater effect in World War II, when the U.S. government specifically recruited Chippewa-Oneida, Comanche, Hopi, Meskwaki, and Navajo tribal members. The Navajo code talkers developed the most complex code, with over 600 adapted Navajo terms, for use in the Pacific Theater. The Germans did not decipher a single code talker message in either world war. The encryption key (their language) was known to all tribal code talkers, but completely unknowable to the Germans. Today with Big Data, super computers and complex algorithms, codes can be broken through...

DSI Technology Licensing Case Study Aurora, Ontario, Canada – CurOzone USA, Inc. developed HealOzone, a patented dental treatment system that utilizes Ozone to replace traditional drilling systems. Ozone, a triatomic very reactive form of oxygen, is utilized by the HealOzone appliance. Injected within a specialized oral appliance, ozone seeps into the pores of a tooth and effectively kills off the bacteria that cause caries inside and on the surface of a tooth. A high concentration of ozone kills bacteria very quickly and is thousand times more powerful than other bacterial killing agents. Once the bacteria are dead the tooth replaces lost mineralization in a matter of a few weeks with patented mouthwash treatments. CurOzone entered into European Manufacturing and Distribution Licensing Agreements with KaVo Dental. DSI Global View (DSI) exclusively represented CurOzone in coordinating a DSI Intellectual Property Valuation (IP-VAL) of the CurOzone technology and patents to establish the Commercial Enterprise Value utilized in negotiations with KaVo Dental. [CurOzone was subsequently acquired by KaVo] KaVo Dental GmbH & Co. – KaVo Group designs and manufactures dental equipment and instruments for dentists and dental technicians. KaVo Dental provides laboratory equipment, including workstations, dust extraction systems, laboratory motors, articulators, diagnostic devices, and processing equipment. The company was founded in 1909 and is headquartered in Biberach, Germany. It has operations in Brazil, China, the Czech Republic, France, Italy, Japan, Malaysia, the Netherlands, Poland, the Russian Federation, Scandinavia, Singapore, Spain, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States, as well as Lake Zurich, Illinois. KaVo Dental GmbH & Co. operates as a subsidiary of Danaher Corp. DSI is an international strategic planning consultancy focused on assisting businesses in researching, analyzing and implementing cross-border...

Oh, a storm is threat’ning, My very life today, If I don’t get some shelter, Oh yeah, I’m gonna fade away War, children, it’s just a shot away, It’s just a shot away, War, children, it’s just a shot away, It’s just a shot away 1969, Rolling Stones, Let it Bleed, Mick Jagger, Keith Richards According to the UN Refugee Agency, there are over 65 million “refugees, asylum-seekers and internally displaced people around the world” (forcibly displaced people). Of these people fifty-three percent originate in Afghanistan, Somalia and Syria. The top hosting countries are all Muslim, led by Turkey hosting over 2.5 million forcibly displaced people. Over 1.3 million asylum-seekers made claims in the European Union in 2015, with perhaps another 1 million claims in 2016. “It is argued that a safely built environment, including adequate housing conditions, is one of the most elemental human needs. Nonetheless, around one billion (one-sixth) of the world’s population currently live in slums and squatters and a large proportion of refugees reside in inadequate shelters.” This statement was made in “Harboring illnesses: On the association between disease and living conditions in a Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon” in the International Journal of Environmental Health Research. Forcibly displaced people are but the tip of the iceberg. A most important first step in helping forcibly displaced people worldwide is providing shelter – a sense of place, a roof over their heads, a floor under their feet, privacy, and ultimately human dignity. This is not complicated. This is where the rubber meets the road. Here are some of the creative resources meeting this need worldwide: IKEA A/S has employed its extensive flat-pack logistics...

Secure and private conversations. Online. By Adrianus Warmenhoven Adrianus provides an excellent analysis of the perils of online communications within companies and organizations. Adrianus explains the protocol IRC: Internet Relay Chat (IRC) is an application layer protocol that facilitates communication in the form of text. The chat process works on a client/server networking model. IRC clients are computer programs that a user can install on their system. The message is simple – don’t rely on third parties to handle your confidential communications. As my grandfather told me, “If you do not know who the sucker is at the poker table, it’s you.” Adrianus Warmenhoven is a colleague in the DSI Global Network. Please visit Adrianus at Adrianus Warmenhoven. Richard Wottrich ...